uragiru | «Ｒ» INBOX.

Akechi-kun,

May I inquire about the uh

Random thick piece of material that was in your cheek

Such manners! I'm quite impressed, Sakamoto.
I kept it. Did you want it for something?

You sure do know how to milk people when they want something from you huh

I was thinking about trying something with the three of em

I just like every conversation to start off on the right foot. :)

Well, I don't have any reason not to part with it.
May I ask what exactly you intend to try?

I mean... you probably ain't wrong about it, but in a really dumb kind of related, kind of not related sort of way

If you're serious about it

Just thinking here, but maybe I can treat you better or something

Give it a trial run

Well, actually, I wanted to see if we can't try to hook the wires up to something and see if it changes anything around the station. And if it doesn't, I'm gonna turn em into something else. IDK what yet though

[ this reply takes a few minutes longer than the previous ones: ]

Did Amamiya put you up to that?

I doubt you'll have much success with the wires, but as I said, I have no reason to hold onto it.
You're welcome to it.

What? No.

[It's so genuinely hard for him not to be pissed at Akechi, but even when he's trying... accusations like this remind him that the other doesn't understand him, or what type of person Ryuji really is.

When it comes down to it, his heart's in the right place, but it's not the right time. He feels stupid for offering a truce, in the end, and it just turtles him back up. Not everything happens in this world because Ren decrees it to be. He has his own agency- and when Akechi says that, he----]

Forget it. I keep thinkin you're anyone but you and it doesn't get either of us anywhere

Yeah, I'll take the wire from you

Do you want anything from me in return?

I could send you reminders, if it's so difficult.

It's a piece of wire that I dug out of a bullet wound.
You don't need to give me anything. I promise I won't come calling for a pound of flesh.

Real question

Like

Super real

Fuck the whole cat and dog shit we have going on

[Whoa, you got the f-bomb, Akechi]

Do you even wanna change? I know you don't give a shit about me, that's fine. I know you don't give a shit about the rest of us either

But is there anything worth salvaging in there?

Even a 1% chance is better than nothin

[Trying not to get angry is proving a lot harder than he thought it would.]

Cool, though. Aight. I'll come grab it from you.

What do you want to hear?
Do you want a big speech about how I've done terrible things?
I know that already. I've known that all along. I'm not one of those fools who's blind to his own actions.
Do you want me to break down sobbing and swear to change my wicked ways?
My heart was never stolen. I already told Amamiya, I'm not one of your projects.

Whether or not I want to change is irrelevant.
My life is over, in every sense. What would be the point of change?
But to answer your second question: no.
If there was ever anything about me worth salvaging, it died long before I did.

No, man it ain't like that. I don't wanna see you breaking down or sobbing or any of that shit.

You always assume everyone's got some goddamn plan for you

But trust me, I don't even have one for my own messed up life

You're such a dumbass, Akechi. Like... you yell at me for being stupid and easy, but god you can be such an idiot too

Your life isn't over. Anything can change. They just need to want to. And maybe you can't be forgiven for the things you did, but that doesn't mean you gotta let it ruin you. Haven't we all been ruined enough? Not one of us comes from a good background.

What's the point of keeping that shit going

Haven't we had this conversation before?
You don't know anything about me.
What was I to the rest of you? Shido's dog?
I'm sure that's what I must have been when you made your plan to use me.
Don't get me wrong, I admire it. It was quite ruthless of you all.
And I should have expected it, given that usefulness is all people see when they look at each other.

But my point is that when I say my life is over, I don't think you understand what I mean.
You think I'm talking about the failure of my plans, or my actual death.
Even if I had won, the outcome would be the same.
It was always going to be the same.

Yeah but you should know by now how much of a persistent bastard I am

Dude... that situation was do or die. You pushed us up against a wall. You can't deny that you were using us, too

But if you hadn't made that first move

If you hadn't gone off and gotten yourself killed to make sure we finished the job

It could've been different

Everything could've been different. Your approach sucked, your timing sucked. We could've been there for you man, but you chose to go it alone. You say the outcome was the same, but that's not the outcome you should even be thinking about. We took Shido down, with or without you. There were a million roads to get there, but you had to burn down all the ones that lead to us being there with you. Vengeance ain't even that fucking good.

We're never gonna see eye to on eye on this. But there's always a choice, and there's always hope.

[Morgana taught him that. He won't forget that life lesson.]

Ha.
I wonder how all of you managed to stay that naive in a world as rotten as ours.

My fate was sealed long before I met any of you.

It's not as rotten as you think it is

We just got the shit end of the deal

And isn't that rotten?
To fall between the cracks and suffer for it, for circumstances beyond your control.
What good is a world like that?

I don't know man

Even if the world is messed up

Even if everything we do hasn't changed a damn thing

Even if my dad used to beat me senselessly when I was a kid

I still hold out faith that there's good in this world. If you can't see it, dude, I'm sorry. Not even a pity sorry, like... actually, goddamned, deep down in my soul sorry.

By holding onto all that negative shit, and keeping it deep inside you, never letting it go, you just contribute to its fucked-up-ness.

[ he considers not answering at all. unlike Ren, Ryuji probably won't bother to chase him down; even stubborn, he doesn't have that kind of investment in Akechi, that part of Ren that is impossible to understand. but it's after he's thought about it for a while — going on fifteen minutes, twenty — that he finds himself opening the text again.

deep down in my soul sorry. what does he do with a sentiment like that? it doesn't make a difference. he damned himself when he was fourteen. ]

What's the alternative?
To have faith, and to have it shot down again and again and again?
I won't.
I'm tired of it.

[This is why, at the core of their beings, they're so different from each other, and yet, so unbelievably similar. Ryuji has to take a few moments there, but he doesn't know... what to do. He wants to write Akechi off, to settle into this high horse like it's his fucking shield, but he can't, because his heart is too big for his ribcage, rattling at it like a lab mouse that doesn't know its way out of the maze.

Talking to Akechi makes him feel like he's 12 again, and it haunts him more than the station ever could.

But he knows better. He's seen better. It was friendship that pulled him out of his own spiral; Ren, who reached a hand down into the abyss and pulled him straight out without knowing what he was doing. Either of them, really.]

I can't put myself in your shoes. I've never been great at bein anyone but myself.

But I'm not going to believe for a second that you don't have it in you to get back up, even when you're knocked down.

And maybe it's not me

I mean it probably ain't me, we probably got too much bad blood

But I hope someone's there to baton pass to you

Cause the way I see it

There are still some things left to fight for in this world

And I hope you see it too some day

A world that both of us have left behind, for the moment.

Come and get your wire, Sakamoto.

[And it's exchanged, wordlessly between the two, the door closed before he can even get a word in, not that either of them necessarily would want to.

It's a few days, maybe a week, even, before Ryuji's finished up with the result of what he was looking to do- yeah, big surprise here, the wires do nothing to any of the station's circuity. It's a small blow to the blond, thinking that there was meaning in any of this- that their wires would combine in a meaningful way, or that there was some bigger picture that he didn't understand, that he just to look for to find.

Recycling them, he's fashioned the pieces of the scraps into a few distinct ear cuffs. They're not fancy, and at some point, maybe he'll find the stomach to pierce his own ears and wear this like a badge of courage with someone's help- but one day, Akechi will find an exact, 4th copy of that somewhere in his vicinity- whether or not that's in his room, left for him in a place he was eventually headed for- whatever. Ryuji doesn't bring this up with Akechi, ever, but eventually when his ears are pierced and he's rocking them like the badass he is, it'll be more than obvious where they came from... if it wasn't already.

No message. No additional words. No eye contact. Just the gesture.

And Ryuji's okay with that.]

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